U.S. Researchers Identify a New Potential Drug for Breast Cancer

Researchers from the U.S. have identified a new potential drug for breast cancer. The drug offers hope for patients with breast cancer that is resistant to conventional therapies.

The scientists discovered a molecule that can help oncologists treat breast cancer in patients who don’t respond to traditional therapies. The molecule works by shutting down estrogen-sensitive breast cancer.

Novel medicines work through a unique mechanism through a molecule that targets a particular protein found on the tumor cells’ estrogen-receptor.

Researchers say that the new drug is a fundamentally distinct, new class of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer agents. It has a unique mechanism of action that helps overcome the limitations found in current breast cancer therapies.

After testing to determine if they need estrogen in order to grow, almost 80% of all breast cancers were found to be estrogen-sensitive. They can be treated effectively through hormone therapy drugs like tamoxifen, but then many become resistant in the end.

The new drug has potential and is a highly effective novel treatment for patients with treatment-resistant breast cancers.

Conventional hormonal drugs like tamoxifen function by attaching to estrogen receptors in cancer cells. They prevent estrogen from binding onto the receptors and causing cancer cells to multiply.

But the estrogen receptor can mutate, changing its shape to prevent the treatment drug from fitting neatly with the receptor. This causes the cancer cells to begin multiplying again.

Researchers have been working to develop drugs that can block the estrogen receptor’s ability to interact with co-regulator proteins that fuel tumor growth in most breast cancers. By blocking the protein to protein interactions, the cancer cells won’t be able to multiply.

They’ve developed the new molecule (ERX-11), which mimics a protein building block or peptide to block cancer cells, so they don’t multiply.